Home Safely

We arrived home safely this morning.  Thank you for all your prayers.  We did have a massive delay in Fort Meyers, but they held our plane in Charlotte.  Our 1 and 1/2 hour layover became 30 minutes (and we had to clear immigration and customs) - but Praise God we made the flight.

We crawled into bed at 3:30 am, and the girls were of course up bright and early.  Joy has a call in to the doctors office here to get the girls checked out as they have both had gross coughs.  We also want to check the chicken pox issue before we have any company or go any where.  (In Guatemala they just go out anyway - but don't worry we are still American!)

Our Last Update from Guatemala

Well, we are getting ready to leave the school after our last day of working here. Kenneth has finished pulling wires, and installing 3 of the computers (and they are working.) Praise God!!
Becky and Joy designed the prayer card today and have come up with a plan to work together on it from many miles apart. At last all of the pictures have been transferred from one machine to another - there were over 1000 taken.

Tomorrow we leave for the states in the afternoon, but will probably not be in the school in the morning. We have extremely slow internet at home so will not blog from there. We are sad to leave, but know that we must for now.

We will post an update when we are home safely. We are due to arrive in Boston at midnight or so Thursday (well, Friday.) Please pray that the girls will travel well tomorrow, especially Emma with her ear infection. Also pray that there will be no delays, or that God will provide a better way home if there are. We are also praying that we will be able to bring Emma's seat on the flights, because she sleeps better in it. Please pray for safe travels to and from the airport for us and my brother.

Thank you for your prayers over this time, we look forward to seeing you and talking with you soon.

The Eisners

Trip to CAG

Yesterday we visited Christian Academy Guatemala for a tour. CAG is a school for missionary kids that our girls will attend if we move here. It is 78% MK's and then there is a 17% Korean population (many of whom are unsaved) thus making it also its own mission field. Everyone we met was very nice. The director took us to lunch, and then took us to see some houses in the area that are very inexpensive and very nice for a family.

These are some pictures of the school and grounds.


These are from Abigail's perspective.

Monday Update

This will be a quick update.

I realized that I had not blogged since sometime last week. I've been very busy with rebuilding the spare computers and have not had chance to check my e-mail let alone blog.

Well, so far of the five computers, three will be operational when I leave. One of the five has a faulty power unit and the other one -- the "old" one isn't really usable in any meaningful capacity. One of the computers will go to the psychologist and the other two will go to classrooms.

Friday morning Abigail was complaining about some new bug bites. I put anti-itch cream on them and thought all was good. When we got home in the afternoon Marisela noticed that Robert had the chickenpox. We checked Abigail out again and we figured that she had them too. Now, she has had the vaccination for the pox so we were hoping and praying that she would have a mild case. Robert's have crusted over so he is past contagion and Abigail has not developed any new ones at all. So, we are concluding that all is good.

Emma has developed another ear infection. We started her on omoxicilin and she is improving day-by-day.

Today we're off to check out CAG, Christian Academy Guatemala. We'll update you all on that later today or tomorrow.

That is all for now.

-knme

Our head in the clouds!

Literally, yesterday we went up to the school Chuchuca to take pictures and attend a pastors conference. Chuchuca is at 7,000 feet and COLD! The students had sweaters and gloves on during school - rememember there is no heat here. It was a great trip, we had awesome tamales for lunch, and now we will be able to have prayer cards for all of those students too. The driving was a little scary, we had about 0 visibility and there were still walkers and bikers on the road. Thanks to God we all made it back safely.
These pictures are of the clouds and the fire on which our lunch was cooked, oh - and a little girl named Dorcas (some of you will get that!)

Photo Organizing Done

At long last the pictures are all organized. It has taken 3 complete days to match up names with pictures but we are done. Amazingly with a school of 287 there are only 10 who need their pictures taken again. These are a few of my favorites.

Traveling a Bit

Andrew returned home safely last night, and is already in a flurry of activity. Kenneth is working on computers with Andrew today and they will be going to the airport in the capital this afternoon. There is a pastor coming from the states to do a conference in the mountains tomorrow. Becky's dad is also coming with the pastor so it will be nice to meet him. The men and Joy will be traveling to the mountains tomorrow. Joy will be taking pictures at the school in Chuchuca for the prayer cards while the men do their conference. Please pray for safe travel and that the picture taking will be well organized because there is not much time and there are many students.

Let the computer work begin...

So, I started the computer work this morning. The computers in the main office need some work. Of the six computers in the office, three are "relatively new", one is about seven or eight years old and the last twi are probably close to general failure. The three decent desktops are in desparate need of memory... d-e-s-p-a-r-a-t-e. One needs a new power unit. The components for these computers, if bought in the States would be about $180. We are going to see if we can cover some of these repairs from the surplus of our support.

Sadly, both Becky's and Andrew's laptops are nearing the end of their lives. I believe Becky's can be repaired... err... that is to say I believe its life can be extended with some repairs too.

Tomorrow I start looking at the five other computers they want setup. My quick assessment determined that these computers are about six to eight years old. I have been told that they all run and have already been loaded with software. I need to set them up and run the wires to network them with the rest of the system. I think this will be an exciting project.

More updates tomorrow.

-knme

Sunday Iglesia and Futbol

Well, Abigail had her first real bit of culture shock on Sunday. Church here is very different than in the states. We arrived at 9:30, when church started, and Becky declared that we were early. Even though the service starts at 9:30, people filter in till well after 10:15. The whole thing was in Spanish of course, and there was so much background noise that we got nothing out of the service. The pastor spoke for 45 minutes before we sang a song, and all the kids were still in the service. The good thing is that here that is normal and they are not expected to sit and behave like angels without talking. (Although the noise of the kids added to the already loud background noise of the town.) I figured that when it was finally time for the children to leave and go to Sunday School Abigail would be so excited - she loves it in the states. Well.....a few minutes after she left she was brought back to us bawling her eyes out. I think it all just finally hit her that she couldn't really understand what was happening and she was in a new place. Seeing her so upset about something she normally loves then made me start crying. It did get better though, I convinced her to go back to the room with me and then I stayed and helped translate the lesson for her. I probably got more out of that then I would have in the church. Emma did pretty well, and looked awfully cute in her "traje tipico" but even she got restless enough that Daddy took her out. No small wonder when church starts at 9:30 and gets out at 11:45ish.

After church we went to McDonalds for some good run around time. The McD's here has a good size play area with lots of tables for parents to sit at (not like that one in Portsmouth with 4 tables.) We enjoyed some caramel sundaes which you can't get in NH anymore. (Sorry.)

Then it was off to Joco-Fut a local futbol (soccer) and basketball place. That was a lot of fun. They had a playground with a sandbox, which mostly came home on Abigail. She was so dirty we carried her straight into the bathroom. I have never seen that child's feet so filthy.
Abigail and Joy played soccer on the girls team. Joy scored 6 goals and Abigail stopped 2 (mostly because one of the teenage boys had no mercy and kicked it right at her as she "helped" in the goal.) Boy, we were both proud of ourselves. The girls ended up winning the game - but we weren't playing the high school boys - no way, never, they are brutal and really good. The only downside to the afternoon was when Abigail sat to get dirt out of her shoes and ended up on an ant hill. They were biting ants, but praise God she didn't get any bites. That is extra good because all of her other bites are finally healing.

After the kids were all in bed Becky, Kenneth and I (Andrew is out of the country right now,) played a game that is new to us - Settlers of Catan. If any of you like that too we will have to set up a game night! We love it! We ended up having to play by the light of a lantern as we lost power last night, but hey - this is Guatemala. I missed the end of Extreme Home Makeover, but that's OK. The power eventually came back on enough that we had partial lighting, but not quite enough to run the refrigerator.

Things are going well here. I will probably not be teaching music, and if I do it will be very little. We are still very much in the huge process of taking pictures and translating stories for this years prayer cards. The hardest part now is figuring out which kid goes to which picture - they got out of order when being taken off the camera. We are down to about 150 pictures with no name. (Maybe more.) I have been naming them since 9 am today. they are cute, but now it is starting to get old - thus why I took a break and wrote this extra long blog.

God Bless and thanks for praying - we continue to enjoy getting your comments!

Saturday Update

Hi everybody.

We all had a good weekend. Well that is to say that the girls are still not sleeping so well. For example: Abigail woke last night around 11pm or so complaining that there were "too many ants to compromise with" and asking for help to "get her out of the ant trap" - try to figure that one out.

Saturday morning we had a private tour of the Finca Filadelphia coffee farm/plantation. Our tour guide was Pablo - owner of Kafes Guatemala, the American complany which exports Guatemalan coffee to the states and has pledged to donate 20% of all purchases to L.A.C.E.S. Wowzers! I had no idea how much work goes into prepping coffee for exportation. The Finca Filadelphia is 750 acres and covers some eight mountains at a variety of elevations between 2,500 and 8,000 feet above sea level. It was absolutely amazing. Joy has some pictures of the plantation on the other computer so we´ll update this post later.

After our tour we returned home to rest for a while and then headed back out to meet with someone Ken met at CSA (Christian Spanish Academy). Ron Harrington is a fellow Canadian (retired Air Force and RCMP) who, with his wife, now live in a retirement community in a Mexican town some 40km south of Guadalajara. They are Lutherin missionaries. Ron has spent the last five weeks learning spanish at CSA and his wife, Mary, will be joining him the middle of March to study with him. Ron was interested in what we were doing and why we were here.

Thanks to a random power outage our game of Settlers from Catan was played with lantern light (for some part).

Well, that about wraps up Saturday...

Miss everyone back home.

-knme

Luis Angel - Not so bad

OK - the situation with Luis Angel keeps changing, but sometimes only in what we are told. Yesterday I posted that he had a bone infection, because that is what the secretary here told us (and no, we didn't just translate wrong.) Really he doesn't, but they did move him to a hospital where they specialize in treating infections. He will be there for about a month undergoing daily cleanings to keep the infection from spreading. Then he will spend about 6 months in the other hospital. At least it is not a bone infection!

Luis Angel

We just heard from Glenda, and the new about Luis gets even more sad. They got him to the National Orthopedic Hospital early this morning, and learned that the infection has spread to his bones. They then sent him to another hospital in the city where they specialize in such infections. It is expected that he will be in that hospital 6 months. This is going to be very hard on him, and also very costly for LACES. God knows though and will fill this need I am sure.

Remember Junior?

Anyone from the Guatemala 2005 team should remember this child. His name is Junior and he has so many problems at home. His mother leaves at 6:45 am and returns at 9 pm from work. All the children have different fathers. She wants to do the best for her kids, but she can't. Right now his brother, Juan Carlos - whom the team met (he liked to ride Mike's skateboard), is missing. The children have to do everything for themselves, and his oldest brother works after school to make money to buy their food. They move from house to house, wherever they can stay for a time. No one seems to know what happens with all the money that his mother makes, because it really should be enough to help the kids more. The thing is, there are kids in this school with far worse situations than his. I am so glad to be a part of helping these kids have a better life!
By the way, Mike, the only reason Junior smiled here is because I told him the picture was for Miguelito.

Pictures

We can only post one picture with each post, so from time to time I will be adding some to previous posts, or just posting a picture and caption. Be sure to check the old posts for new pictures. We are enjoying getting your comments, sorry if we don't have time to get back to all of you. Thanks for your prayers!

This is Emma, Ana, and Abigail playing on the swingset. Emma thinks that this is the greatest thing ever!

Friends

The kids are definitely getting along well. Last night we had a little dress up party. The other day we had spiderman and Mary Jane. Too much fun!

Driving - Check!

Well now, that wasn't as bad as I thought. Yesterday when Becky and I, Joy, got back from the hospital she said - "OK, you take the car and follow me." Follow her, funny, but she wasn't joking. So I got my first crash course in driving Antigua style with no one in the car with me.

Some of you may be thinking - "What's the big deal?" Well, first off the stop signs are optional, it is all done by drivers hand motions and whether or not someone feels polite. Most of the cars have no brake lights, so you have no clue when they are stopping or turning. The streets are very narrow and normally there are cars parked on both sides, so it is a bit like an obstacle course. You can pass, or get passed, anytime you want. Oh, and the one way streets, well...those are apparently optional as well. Oh yeah, and there's this little thing of giant pot holes and random speed bumps, and big stone pillars at the ends of the streets to block off busses, and make life generally difficult. I am personally of the opinion that everyone in the car has to suck in and hold their breath in order to make it through the pillars without scraping the sides of the car.

But, God is gracious and we made it to school today with no accidents, and I wasn't even really that nervous. (Though Ken did say he thinks he lost about a pound fretting.)

What is a 'woot'?

Joy was truly baffled as to what 'woot' meant.  If you find yourself likewise confused see here.

Abigail's Update

Joy told me that she forgot to post an update on Abigail... and as I have the computer now I thought I'd do it.

Abs, and Emma, both slept very well last night.  In fact Abigail did not complain once about her bites.  And, to boot, Emma slept soundly between 11p and 5a.  Woot!

Finished my third day of Spanish.  I might get to take the Grado 'A' test either late tomorrow or, more likely, Friday.  I am a bit behind where I wanted to be but I feel that I am retaining more this time.

That is it for now.  Missing everyone!

-knme

Luis Angel Update

This is a picture of Luis a couple of years ago with a member of the DBC team that was here. Thanks Karen!

As of this morning there were various choices for the treatment of Luis. Becky and Glenda, the school's technical director, went to the capital this morning to visit the National Orthopedic Hospital. The decision has since been made, mostly due to the quality of care he will receive, to move Luis Angel to the capital city. The move will be done tomorrow early in the morning, which means that Ken and I will have to transport ourselves around the city. Time to learn how to drive like the crazy drivers they are down here.

Ken and I will be learning the ropes from Becky this afternoon, please pray that we are safe and that we have no accidents. Also, please pray for Luis - this is a big move for him, far from his family and friends. Pray that God will provide him with new friends in the hospital and that even at his young age he will understand that this is the best for him.

Luis Angel News

Since yesterday not much has happened with Luis Angel. The hospital has lost his X-rays but there has been no movement yet on his treatment. Please continue to pray for him. We are certainly thankful that he is in a hospital, but we are still annoyed at the classist/racist treatment he is receiving.

You want us to eat what?

OK - for anyone that is under the impression that we are vacationing, we had the "luxury" of eating pig head today. Ken didn't mind it nearly as much as Joy (and Becky.) It was quite the joke of the office amongst both Americans and Guatemalans. They are trying to run the food program by donations, and well, someone donated 5 pig heads. The taste was wonderful, Joy is not so sure she wants to know what the crunchy pieces were.

Yesterday when I (Joy) got home from working at the school the kids were out taking a walk with the helpers. I was shocked when Emma literally could have cared less that I was home. She made absolutely no motion of wanting to come to me instead of staying in Marisela's arms. As traumatized as I was this is actually really good because it means she is adjusting well. She has also started walking even more, though we didn't think she would have any need to with her three caretakers. Abigail and the boys play together very well and don't need much watching since the yard is totally enclosed, thusly Emma gets A LOT of attention and she is very much loving it.

Abigail did her homeschooling with Marisela yesterday and began learning the Spanish alphabet. I was very impressed with Marisela's teaching and would easily let her do it every day so that Abs learns even more Spanish. She came here to the school today and went to the kindergarten class. She lasted about an hour, until her bug bites started to hurt and she got frustrated not being able to explain this to her teacher. She did dive right in though, and I was saddened as I watched her walking away to her classroom holding the principals hand.

When I went home to pick up the kids for school Emma very distinctively said Hola to me, that was exciting. I am very pleased with how well both the girls are adapting.

I began the process of picture taking today and so far it is going well. There is a lot of translation work to be done, but it has been a very good way for me to learn some Guatemalan phrases. Thank you to all of you who have been praying for confidence in my Spanish, I am certain it is helping. Please continue to pray that we will make the time for both our family and our time with God. Please continue to pray that God will reveal to both us and the Lovealls if this is the place that He wants us to continue to serve Him.

We miss you all, but we sure are enjoying the nice weather, grass, and outdoor flowers.

Abigail Update

Greetings from Guatemala. Today I am writing to let everyone know that during the first couple of nights while Abigail was sleeping she was bitten by a couple mosquitoes. She has a number of bug bites on her legs, only her legs and did not have a very good night last night. We have switched from treating her with standard anti-itch cream with something a bit stronger and will also use some cortezone cream tonight.

Andrew and Becky say that this is fairly normal and is likely because of the type of jammies she was wearing (open at the ankles) and the way she moves around at night.

It is nothing to really worry about but please pray that she has a better night tonight... so we all can have a better night.


-knme

Happy Monday

Greetings from sunny and warm Guatemala. All is good.

The girls let us sleep in this morning (6:15am).

Yesterday we decided we needed to relax so in the morning we went to a water park and had some wet fun. It was our family, and the Loveall family and the Dempster family. The Dempster family is from Tennessee and is down here while they're going through the hoops of adopting a new baby girl. They're a very nice family.

When we returned from the park we went to a school football (soccer) match. That was a hoot. Afterward we went to the local grocery store to stock up on food and other essentials.

From Ken: Today I did my first morning at CSA (Spanish school). Tested into Grado 'A'. They're going to do a couple days of review and then let me take the test. If I pass then I'll do some work in the next grade level. Definitely had Spanish overload.

Had chance to look at some of the computers they want me to work on and surveyed the school and their current setup. Is going to be a challenge but should be fun at the same time.

Tonight we're going to go out and celebrate Nancy's birthday. Nancy is one of the other American missionaries working with the Loveall's.

Well, that is all I have to say so far... oh yeah, Emma took three steps for me today!!

From Joy: I have spent the day at the school with Becky. There have been a lot of people speaking very fast Spanish, but my brain is adjusting quickly. There is a 9 year old boy from the school named Luis Angel who is in the hospital recovering from an operation. He was born with a birth defect where his femur was outside of the hip socket, so the school paid for him to have an operation. This is very risky at his age, but Luis could barely walk. The operation he had put a pin into his hip and then he was casted. Unfortunately when the doctor took off the cast he also took out the pin, and come to find out, dislocated Luis' hip. Now he has an infection, and the doctors are basically giving the gringos the run-around. We went to the hospital this morning to get an update, but all they would say is that they have to wait for the infection to go away. Apparently then they will start thinking of a plan to help him. They blame the infection on the fact that he lives in a house with a dirt floor, but we think that the dislocation is what started the whole problem. They could have given him a preventative antibiotic, since they knew his living situation, but they didn't. Becky tried to help keep the wound clean at the house, but could not even touch him because he was in so much pain. They put him back in the hospital, where at least he has meals and a TV, but not the best medical care. After blaming all his problems on not keeping the wound clean, they called a few minutes ago to say that they couldn't clean it because he was screaming in pain. Apparently it is not customary to give a child a shot to help with the pain before such a procedure. So now, everyone in the office here is scrambling around trying to come up with a better plan to help Luis.

Please pray that things will happen quickly and that poor little Luis will be feeling better soon.

On our way to visit Luis this morning there was a young boy waiting at the door of the school to talk to Becky. He desperately wanted to study here, but they don't have any room, and his family didn't bring him in to register before the school year started. I was very close to tears as I watched Becky tell this child that he would have to wait to go to school yet another year (he is probably 7 years old.) This happens a lot down here. It is such a blessing to have Escuela Integrada here to help the 287 kids that they can.

I have started coming up with a plan for the music classroom, though I will have less time than I thought, as of today. Tomorrow I will be taking school pictures to be used for the new prayer cards and when I post this blog I will begin translating all their life stories. Pray that God would help this process to go quickly and that I would not feel pressured to get everything done. Pray that He will show Becky and I what are truly the most important things for us to accomplish while we are here.

The girls were great when I left the house this morning, Abigail really could have cared less and Emma was falling asleep. I am going to go home for the day, but will do another post if I learn anything new about Luis Angel.

Safe Arrival

Greetings from Antigua, Guatemala! We made it safe and sound.

Our plane was delayed in Boston by 35 minutes due to de-icing. This cut our change-over in Charlotte down from an hour to practically nothing. We basically deplaned and brisk-walked to the other gate and got on our connecting plane.

Through it all we are all doing well.

Everyone slept pretty good last night. The girls had us up at 6am (Central Time). Remarkably Joy was out of bed before me.

Abigail is in her own little piece of Heaven playing with Robert and Jonathan.

Well, that is all for now.

Missing everyone back home.

-knm/jr/ac/ebe